Kaka alias rajesh khanna alias jeetan khanna such are sum of the names with which rajesh khanna is fondly called as. He was an adopted son of his parents. He had came into films against the will of his parents by winning all india talent contests. His theatrical back ground helped him in personalisation of characters.
Born in 1942 he was raised with generation of independent india .so on expression level he was different from his previous generation. He was modern.he got films too of that level. Whether its aradhana(his first taste of success) or kati patang(both these films r sakti samanta flavour)he swooned gals all over india.for the first time dilip kumar felt the new phenomenon.actors like sunil dutt, shashi kapoor etc went into out of sync. Whatever he do went to become a history.
Aradhana makes him indias first official acclaimed superstar at that point he was 27 years.anand movie which is one of must to watch bollywood movie makes him a legend. Really he had done sum sort of meromable roles whether it was aawiskaar, bawarchi, sauten or avtaar(similiar storyline as like baghbaan)he had experimented with every type.of roles.
No doubt aamitabh is angry young man yet rajesh essence can not be overlooked at all in movies like anand as well as namak haram.
After 1975 his films went into onslaught of amitabh mania yet he critically acclaimed with his roles in red rose, thodi si bewafai etc
I think as compared to amitabh he had done more diversified roles
.more emotional tearjerkers
.more melodrama’s
I think really he must controlled his career failure with great strength along with failure of early marriage with dimple kapadia .it z said that during his failure days he went to the terrace of his bungla and cry & say to god plzz dont test my patience such that ii can lost my faith on u
.
He experimented with politics too
Now he z busy in his tv channel
Infact the one remarkable aspect about kaka is that he did not had done so much multi starer as compared to his counter parts.
In anand he has justified frank kapra’s lines that tragedy is not wen actors cry, its wen audience cry.really whole nation had saw one of the great bollywood movie directed by rishikesh mukhergiii.
In fact this movie has something more about its credit.for first time rajesh khanna had to be without heroine.also, his wearing kurta’s become style statement for the nation
Till then he had formed a brilliant pairing with hrishikesh mukhergee too. Post 1975 era both his favourate directors went on to do films with new superstar.
In changing shift of action movies rajesh found himself totally rejected by filmgoers as films after films his box office fate was unfavourable.
His hey days repititon comes into form of year 1983 with tripple success of avtaar, sauten & agar tum na hote He had experimented with his home production movie alag-alag which was a flop. Later he appears in rishi kapoor directorial debut aa aab laut challen(1999)& sum other unnoticed movies. It seems he is not serious about his acting career
Lets expect his re-appearence into movies